To sit with the rising and falling is to anchor oneself in the most fundamental rhythm of existence. It is not merely a technique for focus, but a gateway to understanding the very nature of life, impermanence, and the self. This meditation, often centered on the subtle movement of the abdomen with the breath, becomes a universe of wisdom contained in the simple, ceaseless pulse of the body.
The Gateway of Sensation
We begin with the physical. In a quiet space, we turn our attention inward, to the place where the breath manifests as a gentle swell and subsequent softening—the rising, then the falling. There is no need to control or beautify the breath. We are mere witnesses to a natural, autonomic process. At first, the sensations may seem coarse: the expansion against a waistband, the tug of diaphragm muscles, the release. This is the surface level. As attention stabilizes, the perception deepens. The rising is not a single event, but a cascade of micro-sensations: a faint stretching, a gathering of pressure, a subtle vibration of cellular movement. The falling reveals its own texture: a softening, a dissolving, a gentle retreat.
In this careful observation, the breath ceases to be a conceptual thing called "my breath." It becomes a pure, direct experience—a play of pressure, movement, and temperature. The mind, so often lost in thought, finds a tangible home in the body’s present-moment reality. Each rise is a new beginning; each fall, a complete letting go.
The Metaphor Unfolds
As we settle into this rhythm, its metaphorical depth begins to reveal itself. The rising and falling is the primal pulse of the cosmos. It is the inhale and exhale of the planet, the swelling tide and its retreat, the expansion and contraction of galaxies. In our own lives, it mirrors the fundamental pattern of all experience: birth and death, gain and loss, joy and sorrow, effort and surrender.
Every thought that arises in the mind follows this same curve. It emerges (rising), peaks in clarity or intensity, and then fades away (falling). Every emotion—a surge of anger, a wave of grief, a flutter of happiness—manifests as a rising arc of energy that must eventually subside. To see this in the breath is to train the mind to see it everywhere. We begin to understand that nothing that arises persists; it is all subject to the inevitable fall. This is the direct experience of anicca (impermanence), the cornerstone of Buddhist insight.
Confrontation with the Self
Who, then, is experiencing this? The habitual mind says, "I am rising. I am falling." But with sustained attention, this solid "I" begins to deconstruct. There is a rising. There is a falling. There is awareness of both. But can you find a separate, permanent "mediator" behind the process? The rising happens due to conditions (lungs, diaphragm, air pressure). The falling happens due to conditions. Awareness itself arises and passes. The meditation becomes an inquiry: Is there a solid self, or is there just this dynamic, impersonal process of phenomena continuously rising and falling in the field of consciousness?
The breath becomes a teacher of anatta (not-self). We are not statically "being"; we are perpetually becoming—a stream of interconnected processes, with the breath as a central, observable current.
The Practice of Equanimity
The true spiritual work happens in our relationship to the rhythm. We inevitably prefer the rise—it feels like life, vigor, fullness. We may subtly cling to it, or try to usher in the next rise before the current fall is complete. Conversely, we may resist the fall, interpreting it as fading, dying, or failing. We fear its emptiness.
The practice is to cultivate a balanced, gentle awareness that rests equally on the rise and the fall. To greet the expansion with neutrality and the contraction with equal acceptance. To appreciate the delicate pause at the apex of the rise, and the profound, silent pause at the bottom of the fall—that moment of pure potential before the next cycle begins. In this, we practice equanimity. We learn to meet all of life’s "risings" (success, pleasure, praise) without clinging, and all of life’s "fallings" (loss, pain, blame) without aversion. We learn to ride the wave of our own existence without fighting the ocean.
Beyond the Abdomen
The awareness, once honed on the breath, can expand. We feel the rising and falling in the chest. We feel the pulse in the wrists and temples—another kind of rise and fall. We notice the rise and fall of sound in a room, of light through a window, of moods throughout the day. The entire somatic and sensory world is revealed as a symphony of countless, simultaneous risings and fallings. The meditation object becomes the universe itself.
The Deep Peace of Surrender
Ultimately, to meditate deeply on rising-falling is to align with the fundamental Dharma, the law of nature. It is to stop arguing with reality. In the seamless observation of this cycle, a profound peace emerges—not from changing the rhythm, but from utterly surrendering to it. There is a deep rest in knowing you are not the dictator of this process, but its intimate witness and participant.
The falling is not an enemy; it is the necessary release that makes the next rising possible. It is the emptiness that gives form its meaning. In fully allowing the fall, we discover a stillness within it that is not dead, but immensely fertile—the ground from which all new life springs.
So we sit. And rise. And fall. And rise again. In this simple, eternal motion, we find the map to navigate all of life’s complexities. We discover that wisdom is not in holding on, nor in pushing away, but in the graceful, knowing balance found right in the middle of the endless, beautiful motion.
